Chabazite

specimen number:
2102341

location:
Prospect Park, Paterson, New Jersey, USA

description:
Large crystals of lustrous chabazite to 2.4 cm in size on matrix. Quite nice for the species from this old classic locality.

The Prospect Park quarry, also known historically over the decades as the Sowerbutt, Vandermade, or Warren Brothers quarry, located in the borough of Prospect Park within Passaic County, New Jersey, United States, represents one of the most mineralogically significant basalt operations in the entire world. Geologically, this extensive open-cut trap-rock operation excavated the Early Jurassic-age Orange Mountain Basalt, a critical volcanic component of the Newark Supergroup that was deposited during the initial rifting of the supercontinent Pangea. As the basaltic lava erupted onto the floor of an ancient rift valley, it formed localized pillow structures, internal dome-like diapirs, and highly gas-charged, porous amygdaloidal layers. Long after cooling, these internal cavities and cross-cutting veins served as plumbing networks for low-temperature hydrothermal fluids, which slowly precipitated spectacular, museum-quality crystal aggregates of pale green botryoidal prehnite, complex datolite crystals, pectolite, calcite, and various classic zeolites, often forming unique epimorphs after vanished casts of anhydrite and glauberite. Historically, the property was officially opened as a commercial crushed stone facility in 1901 by entrepreneur James A. Sowerbutt to supply aggregate and roadbed ballast for the rapidly urbanizing North Jersey landscape. The quarry changed corporate hands multiple times, passing to the Vandermade family, Warren Brothers, and eventually Tilcon New Jersey, Inc., operating continuously for over a century until the depletion of accessible basalt reserves and the physical encroachment of suburban neighborhoods brought an end to active industrial quarrying in 2010.

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